Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?
by darnedchild
Summary: A short fic for Sherlolly Appreciation Week 2017 - Day Four (Non-Canon - First Sleepover/Sleep Together). The many times Sherlock has sought the comfort of Molly Hooper's bed. (I would rate it a "Hard T" for a brief mention of wanking, sorry)


**A/N:** Sherlolly Appreciation Week 2017 – Day Four (Non-Canon – First Sleepover/Sleep Together)

 **Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?**

The first (and last) time Sherlock sleeps on Molly's sofa was the night he jumps from the roof of Barts. The horrid piece of furniture is far too short for him, and not nearly as comfortable as the one he'd been forced to abandon at Baker Street. Beggars can't be choosers, unfortunately; and he was lucky that Molly was willing to put him up for the night at all. If anyone knew he was in her home after he was supposed to have plummeted to his death, she would be in serious danger.

She shuffles past him at half seven, clearly on her way to the kitchen and the coffee maker. "You kept waking me up all night, I could hear you tossing and turning. Next time just take my bed."

They both freeze. They had never discussed the possibility of a 'next time'. He doesn't know what to say; so he simply says, "All right."

Molly nods and continues her barely-awake shuffle toward the coffee maker.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

The first time he sleeps in Molly's bed, he has been "dead" for over six months. He uses the key she'd slipped into his hand moments before he'd left for parts unknown after his fall, the one he'd hidden in a safe space that no one would ever think to look for.

She isn't home, and a quick glance at the calendar on her desk confirms that she is on shift at Barts. He crawls into her bed, dead on his feet, and tells himself that he'll wake up as soon as she comes through the front door. The last thing he wants is for her to find a short-haired half-naked ginger wrapped in her blankets and to scream the house down before calling the police.

He wakes up roughly eight hours later, to the sound of the shower coming on in the _en suite_ bathroom. There is a bottle of water and a sandwich waiting on the bedside table.

By the time Molly walks into the bedroom wrapped in a bright purple robe, hair wet and stringy around her face, he has already devoured half the sandwich and is carefully holding the plate under his chin to keep the crumbs off her sheets.

"I'm sorry if I scared you, when you came home and saw me."

"Why would I be scared?" Molly asks as she sat starts to dig through her dresser for something to change into.

Surely that was obvious. "Strange man in your bed?"

She turns toward the bed with a pair of yellow pyjamas covered with cavorting kittens held to her chest. "I knew it was you. I mean, I know you're strange, but you're not a stranger," she tries to joke.

He swallows the last bit of sandwich and washes it down with some water. "How? I saw John on the street today, and he never gave me a second glance."

Molly laughs, as if she thinks he's joking. "Who else would be sleeping in my bed? The big bad wolf? No one else has a key." She wags a chastising finger in his direction as she moves toward the bedroom door. "And you shouldn't be anywhere near John. Mycroft would have your head if he knew."

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

The second time he sleeps in her bed is only a few weeks after he's returned to London and officially came back from the dead. He hasn't quite adjusted to solitude and stillness in the night at Baker Street now that he is living there alone. Everything is too quiet, too alien. It even smells wrong, nothing like his years-old memories promised. Sherlock suspects that will correct itself the longer he is in residence, but that didn't help him at the moment.

He knew Molly is working the night shift so he doesn't have to worry about talking to anyone or pretending to be civil when all he wants was a familiar space to shut down for an hour or two.

The bed calls to him as soon as he steps through her door. He falls asleep the moment his head hits her pillow. When he wakes up four hours later he is in a much better frame of mind. A photo of Molly and the fiancé tucked into the vanity mirror catches his eye as he dresses. He glances back at the bed with an annoyed grimace.

When Molly comes home that evening, she finds that the bed had been remade with new linens and the old ones are waiting in the washing machine, cold and wet.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

The third time Sherlock pauses in the doorway of her bedroom.

Something is off.

Wrong.

The room stinks of the fiancé.

A sweeping glance tells him what his mind had already subconsciously deduced. There is a dark, masculine catch-all container on her dresser, the kind that held wallets and watches when a man undressed for the night. It's totally at odds with Molly's bright and feminine décor. A second robe hangs off the hook on the closet door. Blue plaid, far too large for Molly's small frame. Another phone charging cord waits on the far bedside table. A pair of men's slippers haphazardly dumped at the foot of the bed.

He backs out of the room and immediately moves to the front door. His hand hovers over the table next to her door, her key dangling from his fingers. Surely the fiancé wouldn't want Sherlock to have unrestricted access to Molly's home now that they were practically living together.

After a long moment, his hand closes around the warm piece of metal. He sweeps through the door, locks it from the outside, and then carefully tucks the key into his pocket.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

The fourth time isn't even his idea.

He is in the lab at Barts, unusually irritable and snappish and so, so tired.

"You haven't been sleeping." Molly's voice makes him jerk and he nearly drops the slide he'd been about to load into the microscope. He hadn't even realized she was in the room.

"After the Zucker double homicide and kidnapping the reporters have been camping out on the stoop again. I can't get a moment's peace."

There is a long moment of silence, and he glances at her from the corner of his eye as he fiddles with the magnification on the scope.

"You know you're always welcome at mine," Molly offers. "Go get some rest."

Sherlock leans back on his stool and watches her face. "Won't Tom mind having you invite another man into your bed? I sure as hell would." He has no idea where that had come from, or why he sounds so belligerent about it. "If you were . . . If I was . . . I would want to know who's been sleeping in my bed."

Molly frowns and opens her mouth to say something. He's worried for a second that she is going to ask him a question that he won't be able to answer. Instead, she pulls her mobile out of her back pocket. "He trusts me. I'll let him know right now."

Her thumbs slide across the small screen as she types out the text, reading it out loud as she writes it. "An old friend needs a place to kip tonight. Told him he could stay at mine. Is it okay if we go to yours?"

She hits send with slightly more force than necessary, and holds it up for him to see. "Done."

The phone pings a few seconds later. Molly glances at the screen and frowns, then quickly tosses it face down onto the worktop without a word.

Fifteen minutes later when she gets up to get a cup of coffee from the vending machine up the hall, Sherlock sneaks a glance at her mobile. There is a message from Tom – "It's Sherlock, isn't it? We've got to talk. Tonight."

Sherlock knows that spending the night at Molly's is going to cause problems between the couple.

He does it anyway.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

The fifth time is the night of the Watson wedding. He lets himself in and heads straight for the bed, strips down to his skin, and curls around her pillow.

He doesn't care if Meat Dagger finds him. Part of him actually hopes the other man discoveres him naked in Molly's bed, but he refuses to examine that too closely.

She comes home sometime after one.

Alone.

Sherlock stirs at the sound of the front door being closed and the metallic jingle of her keys hitting the little table. He waits to see what she's going to do once she realizes he's there.

She grabs some clothes out of her dresser and heads into the bathroom. Minutes later, she quietly pads to the bed. "I know you're awake. Budge over, you're on my side."

He does, without a word. She crawls in and turns onto her side away from him.

"I'm not wearing pants," he blurts out.

"It's okay. I won't peek." Molly rolls toward him and leans up just enough to plan a quick kiss on his cheek. "Night, Sherlock." Then she flops back over and quickly falls asleep.

She's gone when he wakes up the next morning. Her scent surrounds him, and his cock is embarrassingly hard.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

He doesn't remember the next five or so times he finds himself in Molly's bed.

He's never high when he comes to her home. He knows, without a doubt, that she'd eviscerate him if he dared to. Or worse, call his brother or Mummy.

But he's often coming down, hyper sensitive, and desperate to get away from Janine's cloying clinginess.

Molly is aware that he's seeing someone, and that he's doing something very harmful to his body. He's seen the tight way she holds her lips, and he knows she wants to say something about it, but she doesn't.

She insists he showers before she lets him fall into bed. She keeps a pair of men's pyjamas hidden on the top shelf of her closet, out of Tom's sight. He knows she's worn them herself a few times, in between his visits, can read it in the way she looks away as she hands them over each time. He doesn't mention it.

She shares the bed with him twice more, always curled away from him. The last time he lets his fingers softly touch her hair, careful not to wake her. It's soft, just as he'd imagined it would be. He wants to rub his cheek against it, bury his nose in it.

Every one of those five times he wakes up with an erection that he can't will away. The night he touches her hair, he rolls out of bed and straight into her shower where he jerks off, coming so hard his knees buckle under the stinging spray of water.

The only times he's managed to get that hard when he is with Janine is when he's ended up thinking of Molly. Molly's hands on him. Molly's mouth. Even then, he refuses to climax; telling himself that he's being honourable for Janine's sake, and that it has nothing to do with feeling guilty about using Molly's memory in such a way.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

The eleventh time is two nights before Christmas. Molly settles into bed next to him, careful not to jostle him too much as he's still recovering from being shot. She leans over to kiss his cheek, as has become their habit when she's sharing the bed with him, and he reaches up to slide his hand under her hair against the back of her neck. He holds her in place as he slowly turns his head until his lips brush against hers. It is the softest kiss he has ever had, and it makes his heart ache. He releases her, and she draws back. Her eyes search his in the barely there light from the street lamps outside the curtained window.

"Why?"

"Because."

She nods, as if it were a real answer, then lays down. She's facing him for once. A moment later he notices that she's brought her hand up to rest between them, and he puts his over it. His hand is large enough to completely cover hers, and once again he notes that her ring finger is bare. That knowledge makes him irrationally pleased, another feeling he refuses to acknowledge just yet. He laces their fingers together.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

The first time Molly falls asleep in his bed, they've been babysitting Rosie. The child is barely old enough to sit up with assistance, and yet she's run two of her godparents into exhaustion. Her spare cot is upstairs in John's old room, but Molly doesn't feel comfortable with putting her down for her nap so far away.

Sherlock suggests they all lay down in his room.

The three of them settle down on top of the covers, Rosie carefully positioned on her back between the two adults.

When he wakes up, his hand is on Rosie's little stomach and Molly's fingers are barely touching his where they curve over Rosie's side.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

The sun has risen by the time he hesitantly lowers himself into her bed for the twelfth time. She's asleep, twisted in the blankets. He can see the dark circles under her eyes, the dried tracks of her tears. She stirs when the bed moves. As soon as she realized it's him, Molly tries to roll away. He catches her, pulls her into his arms, presses his cheek against her hair. She's crying again.

"Why?" she pleads against his neck.

He tells her about Eurus, about Sherinnford, about the coffin and the phone call. "I . . . I meant it, Molly," Sherlock whispers into her hair, his voice rough and scared. "I love you. I didn't understand it until I thought I was going to lose you, but it's true. I swear it."

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

The first time he sits on the edge of their bed, he can't help but fidget.

Molly's old bed has been dismantled and moved into the garden shed. They plan to update several rooms now that Sherlock has officially moved in, the first of which is the bedroom. Replacing the bed with something larger and slightly less overtly feminine had been a priority. The bedding is completely new. His antique wardrobe has been brought over from Baker Street, and now stands across from Molly's vanity. They are planning to trade several other pieces of furniture between Baker Street and the small house, merging the two locations until they both feel like home.

They've agreed that it is best for him to continue to rent his old rooms from Mrs Hudson for his work. The better to keep his private life separate from the public face of the World's Only Consulting Detective.

He has no idea why he is nervous. He and Molly have spent more nights together than apart since Sherrinford, but this is different.

He wonders if he should turn off the light, but before he can reach for the bedside lamp Molly walks into the bedroom. She's wearing a vest that has seen better days and barely covers the tops of her thighs. Her hair is loose, but still holds that little crimp from where it had been secured in a ponytail all day while they'd moved boxes and begun to unpack Sherlock's things.

She is beautiful.

Sherlock thinks, once again, that this is the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with.

He holds out his hand. "Come to bed."


End file.
